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Report Designer

Get started with Report Designer

Report Designer is a complex but very powerful tool that enables you to design custom reports, financial statements, and letter for your clients and your own firm. The system includes many pre-defined formats that you can use as is or modify to fit your needs. Like many other popular design applications, Report Designer uses a column and row grid system. The comprehensive and versatile nature of Report Designer gives you the maximum capability to design reports, financial statements, and letters that provide the exact information you need in the exact format you want.
When you select
File
, then
Report Designer
, it opens in a separate screen so that you can conveniently switch between the program and Report Designer without having to close either screen. The Report Designer screen includes standard and formatting toolbars, the documents list frame (Reports, Financial Statements, and Letters), the design grid, and the Design Tools frame.
In Report Designer, you can use variables and formulas to define the client information to display, and the format the data in professional, easy to read documents that you can use for any of your clients. You can open multiple document layouts simultaneously within the Report Designer workspace, and each one opens in a separate tab so that you can easily move from one document to another. While you're working on a document, you can open or close other documents, resize the workspace areas, and hide the Design Tools frame.
  • To close a document, select the applicable document tab and select
    File
    , then
    Close
     or right-click a document tab and select
    Close [document name]
    .
  • To resize a frame within the workspace, position your mouse cursor over a vertical border of the frame. When the mouse pointer changes to a double-headed arrow, drag the border to adjust the frame size.
  • Report Designer displays the Design Tools frame by default. To have the application automatically hide the frame when you're working in the design grid, select the push pin button on the title bar of the Design Tools frame. The application will hide the Design Tools frame when you move your cursor away from the Design Tools frame. When you need to use the fields in the Design Tools frame, hover over the vertical Design Tools button in the upper-right corner of the screen.
Custom reports and folders
Based on the service you're licensed for, you can add new Firm, Accounting, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll, or Workpapers reports, as well as financial statements or letters. You can also create custom folders.
Regions
For most reports (but not letters), you can include optional regions or sections. You can define each section using the Region, Row, or Column Properties section of the Design Tools frame.
Formulas
As in commonly used spreadsheet applications like Microsoft Excel, you can create and customize formulas that consist of single values or more complex calculations that can include multiple variables. Using variables enables you to create a "global" definition that can be used in multiple reports and for multiple clients. The easy to use Variables tree provides a comprehensive list of categories that are available for you to insert into your report. Formulas can also contain functions to specify dates, range of date counts, row counts, running totals, and so forth.
Repeating levels
Use repeating levels in a report design to tie related data together in a selected area of a report, such as employee-specific or paycheck-specific details. You can also nest levels within a primary repeating level to include additional details within that primary group.
Conditional expressions
Use conditional expressions to display data based on specific criteria that you set up for the report from the Conditional Expression window.
Report options
Prior to previewing or printing a report, you can use the Options window (select File, then Print) to select the client or range of clients, dates, and regions, as well as to filter and sort client data according to your needs.
Columns
You can adjust the order of columns using cut and paste. Right-click the heading of the column you wan tot move and choose
Cut
, right-click the column heading to the right of the position where you want to move the column, and choose
Paste
.

This article applies to:

  • Product: Accounting CS
  • Subject: Reports

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